When computer people (nerds) talk about "tweak" we don't mean
a twitch or jerk. A Tweak is a modification done in an attempt to squeeze
the last drop of performance out of something. Like tweaking a car's engine.
Tweaks can also be done to customize your computer to better suit your
preferences.
So wtf is Tweak Central? update: 08/06/00
TweakCentral is in a state of transition right now. I can't decide exactly
what I want to do, or the services I want to provide, so it's a kludge
of about three different web-sites, until I can decide what I want to
do.
There are three main aspects to TweakCentral:
1. The News - on the home page I try to keep visitors up-to-speed in the
computing/hobbyist area by linking to interesting news reported elsewhere.
2. Tweaks & Articles - I'm not too big on these because anything I
know, I probably read somewhere on the web and you should read that guy's
article, it's better than anything I could write. I also don't have the
time to do these properly.
3. Links - I do like linking to stuff. I think that I can do the greatest
good by making it easy to find what you're looking for. I spend the most
energy collecting and organizing links. I have folders full of hundreds
of links. Ultimately I'd like to have a mini search-engine, but I don't
think I'll ever have the time to do it.
What I'm leaning toward right now is making a "topics" area
where I might do up a page on various topics that I think are helpful,
like (re)installing your OS, how to shop-online for computer products...etc
like the bootdisk page. And then putting on that page as much information
I know and as many links to related sites I can find. I think that might
be pretty useful to people.
Older stuff:
Tweak Central (www.2e.org and TweakCentral.com) is a website that provides
computer users with information about customizing Microsoft Windows based
personal computers for personalization and enhanced performance.
What I try to do here is to provide information I think is difficult or
impossible to locate elsewhere and links to as much relevant information
as I can find.
With that in mind, I want to find a balance between just posting all the
easy tips that can be found at a dozen other places on the web and posting
important, commonly used tweaks that should be everywhere.
Currently, Tweak Central only provides information for customizing Windows
based PCs, with a little info for Internet Explorer and Netscape users,
but I plan to add more information as I learn.
Financial and .org status:
This is a little outdated, but it stilll applies: Tweak Central is not-for-profit
with no commercial or corporate links or ties of any kind. Neither Tweak-Central
nor I receive any funding or reimbursement of any kind. I
do it for the love!!!
Advertising
Information:
NO ADS - PERIOD.
10/2/99 - Update: I have removed
all references to pair.com and pair networks since they have overbilled
me on 9/13 and refuse to reply to my repeated messages beginning 9/11.
Tweak Central does not accept banner ads or other clutter yet. THANK
YOU.
I seriously don't see this changing in the foreseeable future.
The only thing that would change this is if traffic were to miraculously
jump so high that I would need a more expensive domain-host.
10/2/99 - Update: I have actually switched
domain hosts and the hosting got cheaper... I suspect there will eventually
be free hosting (no ads)... we'll see.
In fact I will be posting a How-To for end users to disable all (99%)
of all banner ads when you browse. Getting rid of ads while browsing first
of all, speeds browsing and you don't have to see that stupid monkey all
the time!
Browser Buttons:
10/2/99 - Update: Gone! I said NO ADS!!!
Because I love you!
NO MALICIOUS CODE:
8/28/99 - Update: I have decided to include some Javascript to make life easier
for me. The script is completely cosmetic and the site functions perfectly
fine without it.
The javascript portions are:
the date at the top-right of each page.
the "this page last updated" at the bottom-left of each page
and the "back (previous)" link at the bottom of each page.
I think the usefulness of these items outweigh any security issues, they
are benign and it's my opinion that individuals browsing unknown sites
should have all java disabled anyway (I do).
Low
fat, low cal:
No Clutter:
Have you noticed web-sites are getting more and more cluttered? There
are more than 3500 links on this single page. I don't like it.
I've tried to make Tweak Central as uncluttered and easy-to use as possible.
Lean & Mean:
Along those lines, I've tried to slim down the site as much as possible.
I try to keep image sizes as small as possible and try not to have that
many.
10/2/99 - Update: I've been messing with
the pages quite a bit and I think I've managed to get a handle on the
page "thickness."
The new pages are down to less than 14K text and graphics have always
been minimal. Low-bandwidth viewers rejoice!
Outdated: Unfortunately my web-pages are becoming unwieldingly large.
The home-page is over 22k and the links page alone is 38k: That's only
the HTML, without the images. I'm looking into some possible solutions
to this...
I understand not everyone has a T3 to their home (don't be jealous!).
Display
information:
DHTML/CSS
This site uses some DHTML and CSS elements. Although I've tried to make
it so these elements don't interfere with older browsers, they still might.
If you are having any kind of problem with this site please let me know:
(and get a modern
browser)
8/28/99 - Update: I am currently only using IE5 to proof the site. I had a mishap
in which I fried 2 bios chips (and those two computers became unusable)
and I haven't had a chance to get Netscape up and running.
I will soon though.
8/28/99 - Outdated, see above: While we're
talking about browsers. I use both IE4.01 and Netscape4.5 to proof Tweak
Central so I know you're getting a damn-good lookin' web-site (too bad
there's no content). I'm going to get IE5 going soon (6.9.99), so I can
start helping people with that too.
Font: Verdana
This web-site was designed using the Verdana True-Type font. It's
oh so nice. If you don't have it, you don't know what you're missing!
This site also uses a little bit of CSS1 and DHTML (I knew
you'd' be impressed). You need a 4.0+ browser to take advantage of these
features and a 3.1 or lower browser may not display the pages properly.
SPAM:
SPAM
10/2/99 - Update: This is pretty
much irrelevant as my email "deluge" is but a trickle... NOBODY
LOVES ME! That's ok, I don't blame you, I've seen the site.
Tweak-Central does not SPAM. Some people think unsolicited
(bulk) mailings are ok. You know what? They're not.
Whatever you call it, it's still SPAM and there's no excuse
for it.
Whenever you email tweakcentral, you can be confident that no-one besides
me, Steven Shultz sees your email or your email address. I purge my email
regularly and there is no-one will ever obtain your name or other information
from Tweak Central. EVER!
SPAM? You're lucky to even hear back from me... I procrastinate bad!
Da
nitty gritty:
Webmaster:
For more information about your webmaster, visit my personal site:
stevenshultz.com
To create this marvelous site:
11/12/00: Acutally, DW3 is a pain in
my arse: It makes linking a pain and that's about all I do on this site.
Artwork is done "in-house" (read by me) with Adobe Photoshop
6. old stuff: I use only Macromedia Dreamweaver3
to actually make this site: it's da-bomb baby, da-bomb!
For graphics (that I don't steal from other sites
) I use Adobe Photoshop5 - PS5 is
hands-down the best graphics program I've ever used. I also use PaintShopPro
5 from Jasc. It's got a great 'browse' feature that lets you see small
thumbnails of all the images in a given directory - neato! (Great for
porn <cough>)
Tweak Central is hosted by Pair Networks
(as of 8/23/99) and
11/9/99 - Update: They finally did get back
to me and correct the billing situation - although it did take some strongly
worded emails. They're back on my good side now.
11/12/00: In September 2000, I upgraded
to an AMD Athlon (thunderbird) 918MHz ('tis really 700, but that's between
you and me). It's in an Asus A7V motherboard with 192MB or RAM. I've got
an IBM 75GXP 15GB ATA100 drive and an older IBM 6.4G ATA33 drive. I've
got a Matrox G400 (dually) 32MB video card, Pioneer 105S (I think) DVD
drive and some old Panasonic 24x CD-Rom. There's some other crap in there,
but that's about it. I still have the Panasonic E110 21-incher: buying
this sucker was the best thing I ever did.
10/2/99 - Update: I'm going to make a "My
computer" section ala Michael Dell's page: See
what I'm talking about
I myself use 3 home-brew PCs: I like to "roll-my-own"...
11/12/00: I gave this 600 to a friend, I
still use an old 300A bumped up to 450MHz as my secondary box:
8/28/99 - Update: I have a new computer now: "Screamer
2." She's a 600MHz (she's fast) Celeron (do they even make 600MHz
celerons?) monster and now has 196 MB of RAM-lovin, Matrox MilleniumG200
video card, Panasoinc E110 21" monitor (ooohhh yeahhh) and a 10.1GB
Maxtor Hard-drive.
I simply 'demoted' (read cannibalized) the original "Screamer"
450 to my second computer. My "screamer" is a 450 MHz Intel
Celeron (what about those? he he) with 128MB of ram, a 17" monitor and
a 6.4 GB IBM Hard-Drive. It's got the modem and is the Proxy, NAT and
SMTP server.
I still have my old-Pentium200 MMX - it's relegated to PDC duties and
file and print-serving.
11/12/00: I run Win2000 AS and WinME dual-booty
on the AMD918 box and NT4sp6 on the other 2 boxen. I want to get LINUX
going as soon as I can scare up some time to learn it.
They all run NT4 Server (sp5) and Screamer2 has
a second hard-drive with Win98 on it whenever I want to see my machine
crash randomly, I just plug that in...
If you would like more information about Tweak Central (or my "hardware"),
drop me a line:
information
Best tweak sites
Because I love you! 
SPAM
) I use 
